On Bent Knee
by KiKi Hayashi
Summary: She had handed him a pink box once, containing a contact lens to conceal his permanent geass. Now he presents her with an equally small box of his own, a black one. Post R2. LJ fanfic challenge.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Code Geass**

**For the 9tailedtechie's 'Marry me' fanfic challenge in the C.C. x Lelouch LJ community.**

**Challenge: **"I once said that if you are a witch, then I would become a warlock. Now that I have, C.C," Lelouch pauses dramatic-like, and takes out a black box. As he opens it up C.C.'s eyes uncharacteristically open really wide, in surprise. "Will you marry me?" - Post R2, Lelouch still alive and non-one-sided love.

**Also dedicated to Zero 'N' Over-kun for always reading and reviewing all my stuff! As I always say, I can't recognise fluff until somebody tell me it's fluff... and they told me this is fluff... and you love fluff if I remember right...**

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**On Bent Knee**

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C.C. swung the gate open and switched her handful of grocery bags to her left hand as she unlocked the mailbox and dug about for letters.

"Shirley?" a voice asked and the witch looked up from her letter searching to find her neighbour, a wrinkly and fragile looking old woman, peering over the fence with a forlorn look on her face.

C.C. removed the chocolate bar that was occupying her mouth, "Good afternoon, Madam."

Inside her mind, C.C. made yet another sticky note to remember her neighbour's name and stuck it to her mental notice board where many similar notes hung, forgotten.

"Just back from work?" the old lady asked as she pruned her rose hedge.

"Yes." C.C. replied and resumed her mail hunting.

"How is your brother?"

"Arthur is fine, his book is selling very well."

"Ah, you'll have to let me read it one day."

"Yes, Madam."

"Such a nice young lady you are, Shirley."

C.C. nodded and watched as the old lady returned back into her house. She returned her chocolate to her mouth and collected the letters.

* * *

When she got through the front door, her first reaction was to dump all her shopping on the kitchen table, extract a plate of pizza from the oven and seek out her 'brother'.

She found him in the study, as expected, fully immersed in his writing. She leant against the doorframe, "You forgot to fill up the tank. I barely made it to the petrol station this morning."

"I've left you enough to get there, haven't I?" he answered without looking up from his work.

C.C. took a bite from her pizza and came forward to lean against the back of his chair so that she could peer at what was on screen. "Another romance, Lelouch?"

"No, more like a detective story, actually." Lelouch answered, "I need another pen-name for this one."

"I quite like Arthur Lamp."

Her 'brother' finally glanced up from the screen. "Of all the names you could have given me, you chose to name me after a cat. At least, I gave named you after a loved one."

C.C. shrugged and continued eating her pizza.

He sighed, "I see, you found the pizza I made."

"Put more cheese next time." she said and went back to the kitchen to unpack her groceries.

Five minutes later, Lelouch's rhythmic typing stopped and he appeared at the doorway. "C.C."

"Hm?" She answered, attention completely focused on dragging a chair over to the cupboards so she could mount it to put her packets of snacks on the top shelf. The witch was under the silly impression that if she arranged them on a less accessible shelf, Lelouch wouldn't steal them from her – not that he would dare anyway.

At first, it was like an unwritten rule, he kept his snacks on the bottom shelf and she had hers on the top. He wasn't allowed to touch hers and she was allowed to raid his all she wanted.

It was highly unfair so Lelouch argued and broke the rule so often recently that it seemed now just plain ridiculous to even stick to it.

She heard him move closer and felt him hold the chair steady for her as she climbed.

Satisfied when her Cheese-kun crackers were hidden well enough from view, C.C. jumped down and returned to unpacking the rest, chomping down homemade pizza all the while.

"C.C.," Lelouch sat at the table and watched as she put the eggs away.

"Hm?"

He pulled off the glasses he wore to write with, paused as if in thought and then pulled something out from his pocket.

"I once said that if you are a witch, I would become a warlock. Now that I have, C.C." Lelouch paused again as if for dramatic effect and uncovered a black velvet box in his hand.

He pushed it across the table's surface until it was closer to the side of it she stood by.

C.C. paused unpacking her grocery to look at the perfectly square tiny box.

He opened it with one hand and C.C.'s eyes uncharacteristically widened in surprise.

"Will you marry me?"

She stared at the ring in the box, cushioned in white and polished to shine.

She thought of the nights after his 'death' during which she had held him like a mother would hold a child - tenderly, carefully, gently and softly. Even though he never had asked for it.

She thought about how he would fall asleep after hours of being held this way and how she would then lightly let her fingers trace his closed eyelids and slowly continue to trace down to his neck where she knew the Geass sigil would be.

She remembered moving them from country to country and hitchhiking from town to town until she had found them a new home. How she had forged all the necessary documents and given him a new name to start his new job as a novelist.

She remembered the days she had spent with him in that study next door, giving him advice on how female characters would act in his first novel, because, as was clear to all who had met and known him, Lelouch, for all his brilliance and intelligence, proved rather dense when it came to romance.

She remembered so many things as she stared at the ring.

He waited patiently for her answer.

After what seemed like eternity, she moved forward to the other side of the table so that she was facing him. Her eyes still fixed on the ring.

She breathed in.

"What happened to my diamond?"

A moment's pause

And he laughed.

"C.C., how can you call me unromantic when you're the same?" his voice might or might not have betrayed a hint of relief.

She shrugged and tilted her head as if to see how the light would reflect off the bit of gold band in the box.

"Why are you asking me to marry you?" she asked, and leant over to peer closely at the ring, "Are you practising for your new novel?"

He chuckled and reached over to her peering face to tuck a few strands of green behind her ear. "I care about you."

Her gold eyes shifted up, her face unmoving. "That's it?"

He lifted himself off his seat a little and leant in.

The skin of his lips brushed hers as soft as a drifting petal.

The past two times they had kissed, it was C.C. who did the kissing and he did the sit and stare in shock - first in the Gawain and then a year later to restore his memories.

This was their third time and it was his turn.

C.C. stared at him as he retreated back to his seat. Then he waited as she returned to staring at the ring.

She looked up at him again, an expectant glint in her eyes. "Well?" she asked expectant.

Confusion was scribbled about the boy's face. "Well?" he prompted back.

She crossed her arms. "Are you going to do it properly or not?"

He stared at her for a moment, eyes wide, before blinking and then hurriedly got off his seat, walked around to her side of the table.

And this time, he did it properly – on one bent knee.

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END

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**Thank you Nilie-chan beta-reading this for me and for her little bits of perfection inserted here and there.**

**Thank you Rumiglion for reading over this and giving me lovely feedback**

**KiKi Hayashi**


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